There is a lot of weird cognitive dissonance in this article. "Special protection" is one of those vague phrases that can (and appears to be here) used in a few different ways.[1] In some senses it is taken to mean "elevating one group to have a higher privilege set and stronger boundary enforcement than the norm". In other senses it is used as "stripping unfair privilege from one group by a combination of positively asserting the rights for the protected group and punishment for those who deny those rights or assert a privilege for their group".[2]

This fuzzy, conflicting set of understandings leads to a lot of cases of people talking past each other, and not really accomplishing anything. We really need to stop using such terms in discussion and be a bit more specific. There are good and bad examples of both meanings, and there needs to be frank and open discussion, without reduction to overloaded and emotionally loaded terms.

Similarly there is the problem of privilege blindness. Even if I treat everyone the same, or think I do, I may not be. This is a real thing - people have notions of the right way to treat someone and they don't even notice that it is absurd or privilege enforcing. For example: In college and for a short time after, I worked at a bar as a bartender. My boss was a black man, the owner of the business. I am a white guy, 10 years younger. People would come in during closed hours with deliveries or job applications or sales pitches and come to me first. I honestly didn't notice or think anything of it most of the time, even when it was obvious when he was in charge (e.g. i was mopping and he was counting out drawers). I would write it off as "oh they just don't want to interrupt the boss" or other reasonable sounding explanations.

One day right before we started accepting a round of applications, he mentioned this to me and I was a bit resistant to the idea that it was racial. I offered the reasonable sounding thoughts and explanations. So we did an experiment. Half the days I would do grunt work and he would do boss work, the other half the days I would do boss work and he would do grunt work. In both cases, a significant portion of the applicants came to me first[3]. Surprisingly, all groups of applicants (divided by gender, race,etc) displayed this behavior. This is a case of privilege that is really difficult to see if you think everyone is treated equally or think you do too. I seriously doubt the applicants were racist (well most of them weren't), and I presume they truly believed in equality and that they actively wanted to treat everyone the same (evidence: how embarrassed they were when I pointed out who the actual boss was). The privilege I had here, by being white, was that the default assumption is that I was in charge.[3]

The point here is that sometimes, despite the best intentions, there are societal/cultural assumptions that are ingrained to the point of invisibility for those who are the norm. It is important to point these out and discuss them, so that people can actively stop doing participating. I believe most people don't want to be (.)ist, but also that the just don't know when their actions are conforming to it unintentionally.

I think that one thing this article is great for, is highlighting that. The author obviously cares that everyone is treated well and equally. It would be insulting to point out to him any of his actions as sexist, because he really isn't.[4] Instead the better approach is to have discussions, which are inherently uncomfortable, in the light of "here's a privilege or default assumption that exists, here is evidence", and get the people with the privilege to see it as existing at all. Once that happens, they will stop asserting it on their own, because the don't want to be unfair or unequal or whatever.

</unintentionally ranty post>

[1] Please note, that my definitions after this footnote are my understanding of the scenario, if this is inaccurate please link me to sources with good explanations!

[2] There is another commonly used understanding of this term, which is as a code word for "I am about to say something that really is about protecting my privileges", however I don't think the author meant this here.

[3] Later, after learning about various equality issues in a more formal way, there were even more things that pointed out the privilege in this situation... my boss was someone who could "pass" as white, I'm a guy who dresses down and is generally scruffy, and so on. There is also a related bit of privilege in this situation from when I was hired. My friend who hooked me up with the lead and a good recommendation made sure to casually point out that the owner was a black man. This priming was something that at the time I thought nothing of, it was a bit of conversation about the environment, but in retrospect, I probably would have made the mistake I described above without that priming. No one ever casually mentions that the boss is white when describing a job to a prospect.

[4] (.)ism implies the person actively wants to keep the targeted group in a state of lower privilege. It is insulting to be called that when you actually want the opposite.